RICHMOND, VA - A federal appeals court in Virginia has reinstated a lawsuit by four former Iraqi detainees who say they were tortured at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee had ruled that he lacked jurisdiction to hear the lawsuit against a U.S. military contractor because the alleged abuse occurred in a foreign country. A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled Monday that the jurisdictional barrier is lifted because the claims are sufficiently linked to U.S. territory.

The former detainees say employees of CACI Premier Technology Inc. who were hired to interrogate them conspired to have soldiers torture the detainees during questioning.